The South African Civil Society Information Service
This article looks back on the campaign for BIG in South Africa, discussing its successes and failures. Its online at:
https://www.sacsis.org.za/site/article/615.1
Policy Innovations: For a fairer globalization
This opinion piece discusses Sovereign Wealth Funds and Alaska-style dividends as a way to ensure transparency in resource revenue and a way to ensure the people benefit from natural resource revenue. Saleem H. Ali is professor of environmental planning at the University of Vermont and director of the Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security. Gary Flomenhoft is a fellow of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont and an advisor to the Vermont legislature on natural resources policy. The article is online at:
https://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/innovations/data/000186#
HOFFMAN, Michael (2010), ‘Utopia means free money for everyone’, The Japan Times, October 17, 2010, available at https://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20101017bj.html
According to the author of this column, the idea of a basic income is startling, but not really new — only its slowly growing respectability is. “Cranks and visionaries have been playing with it for centuries. The name by which it’s lately known is not calculated to grab your attention. It almost seems calculated not to. “Basic income”: Who would see a potential revolution in that? And yet it’s there, scarcely a centimeter beneath the surface.”
CASASSAS, David (2010), ‘Renta básica, acceso al trabajo y emancipación social: reflexiones para un programa de izquierdas’, SinPermiso, 7, 2010, pp. 101-113, online at:
https://www.nodo50.org/redrentabasica/descargas/izquierda.pdf
In this paper, David Casassas (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) focuses on basic income from the perspective of a “left-oriented” platform. In particular, he stresses the potential transformative effect of basic income on the labour market.
BIRNBAUM, Simon (2010), ‘Två föreställningar om jämlikhet: Om rättvisa, självrespekt och välfärdspolitik’ [”Two conceptions of equality: On justice, self-respect and welfare policy”], Tidsskrift for Velferdsforskning (Norwegian Journal of Welfare Research), 13 (2) 2010, 70-82.
A luck egalitarian view holds that inequalities are objectionable only if they are traceable to luck, i.e. circumstances beyond individual control. This article examines recent attempts to develop an alternative account of egalitarian justice that focuses, instead, on the conditions necessary for people to interact as social equals. Simon Birnbaum (Stockholm University) develops a contribution to this relational conception of justice by exploring the relationship between economic inequality, non-subservience and the bases of self-respect. A pluralistic conception is defended according to which such relational concerns should complement rather than replace luck egalitarian commitments. The author also discusses the political implications of this view with regard to income maintenance schemes and conflicts that may arise between the enforcement of responsiblity and the protection of self-respect.
Author’s email address: simon.birnbaum@statsvet.su.se.
ARNSPERGER, Christian (2010), ‘Revenu d’existence et promotion de la sociodiversité’, Mouvements, 64, octobre-décembre 2010, pp.100-106, online at:
https://www.cairn.info/revue-mouvements.htm
According to Christian Arnsperger (Hoover Chair, Louvain University), an unconditional basic income should be seen as a form of subsidy for “social experimentors”. With such an income guarantee, individuals or groups could experiment “alternative ways of life”, outside the mainstream capitalist system.